The First Princess of Wales (16 page)

CHAPTER SEVEN

I
t was a full six months after her mother died that Joan finally decided to risk seeing Prince Edward alone. She had made certain that his two visits at the St. Clares were well chaperoned by her brothers Edmund and John or by the nuns. It was easy enough to keep her distance at Yule for she was in mourning and court festivities were greatly truncated by the illness of the two youngest Plantagenet princes, both of whom had since recovered. And as winter melted into spring and the court finally returned to Windsor, the prince was often on progress to his lands which were being sowed for summer crops, and his mind was forever on the encroaching war.

Holding the prince at a good arm’s length on the other side of the wall she had erected against his advances pleased and amused Joan: how easy he was to handle, this popular and powerful prince of the realm. Others cheered him in the streets, wrote ballads in his honor, and eternally fawned on his good will. But Joan dangled him on the woven, silken thread of twisted passion he felt for her. The ultimate result and where it would take her—the way she would use Prince Edward to bring them all down as they had her dear father and poor mother—she could not yet foresee.

Now, with war fever rampaging through court and kingdom, Prince Edward was back at Windsor. On the English Channel the king’s navy awaited supplies, horses, bowmen, knights, and their armor. Men-at-arms and their retinues clustered at Windsor and London to set out together for Porchester from which the conquering fleet would depart. The king, prince, and their advisors made speeches and plotted secret strategies for the subjection of France which the Plantagenets claimed as their own. Everyone waited and wished and whispered. Farewells were spoken daily. Sir Thomas Holland was due in from his lands in Lancashire on the morrow and the queen had told Joan she expected her young ward to bid that brave knight a fond farewell. But today, the prince’s desperation to bid her
adieu
privately made her reckless and bold. She had consented at last to meet him for an hour at the pond beyond the orchards nearly at dusk the day before he and the king departed. Yet if he planned for this to be a lovers’ parting tryst, the victory would be hers again: she had laid her own careful plans to set him sharply back on his spurred heels and to let him know she did not care for him, a small first step toward some great, shapeless revenge she sought.

The prince had gone out by another door to be waiting for and guarding her arrival as he had vowed he would. In the growing shadow of hickory and willows ahead, she saw him step forward and motion her farther around the gray-green pond.

He wore a leather jerkin belted closely across his flat stomach, and his hose and boots were dark as the greenery behind him; his tawny head was unfashionably uncovered and mussed; he looked as if he had been riding. She, in contrast, had dressed elegantly, flamboyantly almost, in a vibrant gown of the type she and her pliant compatriot Princess Isabella had taken to wearing in their increasingly mad and witty revels about the court. The kirtle was of orange-red sindon—a fine, expensive linen—and had a low, oval bodice, softly pleated, and a full soft skirt. The delicate silver-threaded roses embroidered on the narrow sleeves, full hem, and taut bodice were entwined gracefully. The
surcote
was sunset-hued and had a wide, golden fringe which the younger set at court had now made quite the style. Her heavy blond hair was bound up in two elaborate plaits with seed pearl ribbons at the side, and tiny ringlets spilled over her brow and nape in a fashion no one else, not even Isabella, accepted yet. Saints, but if the fickle courtiers could only know she had their beloved prince on such a taut leash—she grinned inwardly—such a coif would no doubt soon be all the rage, too.

He smiled and seized her hand to lead her a little way back from the pond to the far side of a single, massive oak the girth of at least four fat friars. Although it was hardly dark here yet, Prince Edward’s eyes shone white as they went over her, and his teeth looked purest snow against the sun color of his face. One moment she hesitated to move away with him from the open area of the pond, for the snare she had set entailed their being readily seen. But, this was not back too far, not hidden really, and she would no doubt hear approaching voices and call out easily enough when it was time.

“Jeannette,
ma chérie,
here—over here.” His voice was breathless and velvety deep. “I brought us a little wine and a coverlet so you will not muss that lovely gown. It is flame hued, Jeannette—the color of the French battle flag, the
oriflamme,
which means no quarter will be asked or given. Will it be so with us today,
ma
Jeannette?”

He tugged her down into the embracing curve of gnarled roots, where she sat comfortably on the woolen coverlet pressed against the massive, towering tree trunk. He sat quickly beside her, blocking her in but not touching her, one arm thrown casually across his raised knee.

“Always thoughts of the French and battle talk, Your Grace,” she countered ignoring the tease which struck her almost as a physical caress. The little, wild-winged butterflies in her stomach which had been quiet for so long, fluttered, then went still.

“Thoughts not of that battle right now, Jeannette, but this other you have been waging so fiercely to keep me at bay. Since I leave on the morrow, I assume you decided to surrender just a little and, like the other sweet
demoiselles
of the realm, send your knight off with a kiss, at least.”

The direct, quick ploy of the assault startled her. The few times she had been near him these past few months he had been so amenable, polite, and gentle. She beat back the desire to retreat and fervently hoped it would not be long before she heard the voices of the others she had summoned.

“No witty, gay reply, my laughing, flirtatious lady? I had feared lately Isabella’s flighty fancies had changed you, but perhaps it is the other way around. Your silence I take for a truce, and I am here to stake my claim.”

He moved quickly forward before she could turn away as she had meant to do. His hands held her head still while her grip went to his wrists. His eyes, nearly in shadow, studied her startled face, and just before his lips descended, her nostrils flared at the impact of his manly scent—leather, cloves, wine, and the touch of heady bergamot he often wore.

The assault was direct, firm, and it devastated her defenses. Thomas Holland’s few but masterful kisses had never done this to her. And the others, like the fond, fawning Montacute, Lord Salisbury, she had held at bay entirely.

Her lips opened against the prince’s and tingled at the onslaught of his wet, wild tongue. Her palms went flat against his leather-covered chest as if to push him away, but she had not the strength. How massive his body seemed so close to hers like this, how dangerous and overwhelming!

He deepened the kiss by slanting his mouth across hers and crushing her closer. She slid across the little span of woolen coverlet toward him, her hip through her gown pressed against his iron thigh. His tongue darted, demanded, and, mindlessly, she met the challenge in the deep, warm battlefield of his mouth.

His breath came ragged in her ears as he rained little kisses down her neck and throat. “My sweet, my sweet, it has been so long you have been forbidden me and on the morrow I am leaving. Please, Jeannette, yield to me, my precious.”

He pressed her back on the coverlet, his arm tight under her back while the sweet offensive of his lips, mouth, and hands intensified. As so long ago in the little walled garden, her limbs turned to warm water against him. Please—the prince was begging her, please to yield—and then he would enjoy her, use her as she had vowed to use him. Even now his mouth burned through her gown and chemise beneath. His touch lured her to renounce her vow to her mother to bring justice to the vile Plantagenets.

“No, my lord, please. No, stop! I cannot!”

He raised his big, tawny head, and she saw doubt and pain flash in those deep eyes before he frowned. “No, Jeannette, I will not stop. It must be for us today and always. Be damned to them all. You are mine as I am yours.”

“No. Loose me!” She pulled away, struggling in his arms. He cursed and was off her in an instant, though he did not give ground.

“You wretched little tease. All the smiles, the laughter—taking my gifts with sweet, low promises of later. St. George, vixen, later is now!”

She pressed back against the encircling tree roots. “You have no right to speak thusly to me, Your Grace. Oh, I am certain you are not used to being fought off but—”

His hand gripped her shoulders, and he gave her a single, rough shake. “Indeed I am not,
demoiselle,
that is, not by one whose eyes promised everything.”

“That is not true!”

“Aye, promised everything to others, too. You and Isabella are the instigators of the rest of the silly little flirts. Damn it, Jeannette, I thought you were different. You
were
different once.”

“You are hurting me, Your Grace. I am not some Frenchman or enemy at the joust.”

“No, and so I shall conquer you entirely another way, but as completely and as thoroughly, wild little Jeannette of Kent. I have watched you with the others—the amused Holland, besotted young Salisbury, and the rest. Indeed, I told myself they only get the same as I—precious little that—so why should I sport the green eyes of jealousy for your amusement? Then, I tell myself she only strings the others along to cover the feelings she bears her dear prince, but damn it, I have waited long enough!”

“I—I do care for you greatly, of course, my lord prince, but do not speak of me as though I were some prize falcon or palfrey you can break and own. I agreed to meet you here for a farewell, and now you grab me and accuse me—”

The Plantagenet temper she had only caught brief glimpses of on Isabella’s pert face or even the king’s exploded at her. He pulled her fiercely to him, his hands wild on her back, waist, and hips. His mouth branded kisses on her throat and across her collarbones before plunging lower. She twisted against him, at first in rage and then in consuming, rampant desire.

Her blood pounded so hard it nearly drowned all sanity. His knee pressed between her legs, lifting her skirts. He moved even closer, shifting her under him again. To her utter panic, he was fumbling with the lacings of his hose.

The world above—tree limbs, summer leaves, and dimming sky—spun crazily. Cool air crept up her thighs above her gartered hose.

He bent to take her lips again, then hesitated to whisper, “I did not mean for it to be this way or here our first time,
ma chérie.
After this war we fight in France, I swear it will be different, but I must leave, knowing you are mine.”

No, a little voice screamed inside her. No! All the planning, all the strategies to hold him off until she could see the way clear to make them pay.

He had moved closer again when he froze and lifted his head. Joan heard a man’s laugh close by, then the high sound of a woman’s voice calling her name. The expression on the prince’s passion-glazed face crashed from astonishment to disbelief to raw fury.

“Joan!” came Isabella’s voice. “William says he cannot bear to be away from you, so I brought him out. Jeannette!”

The prince’s big hand shot across Joan’s mouth to silence her, although she had no intention of answering Isabella and bringing them over to see her sprawled beneath him. She had planned their arrival to ensure his proper behavior and to show him she did not favor him over the others, but she had never expected to have them walk in on this. The weight of his body hurt her now. He looked as if he would like to strangle her.

“Traitor!” he muttered, his mouth close to her ear. “I will not have the queen marrying you off to some simpleton who cannot handle you before I have had my fill!” The moment he loosed her, she scrambled to cover her bare legs and knelt on her haunches glaring at him.

The calls came more distant as Isabella and the slender, dark-haired William Montacute, the new Earl of Salisbury by his powerful father’s death, traced the pond’s grassy edge away from them.

“I have had enough of playing fond, country knave at your beck and whim,
demoiselle,
” Edward said, his voice cold and hard.

“You? I daresay, you got what you came for!”

“I hardly even got started. Are you such a country maid that you don’t know what I intended beyond a few clinging kisses and your stubborn submission to a quick caress? Your childish trick of summoning those two or whoever else you planned to have parading out here to put me off sickens me. The way you have been stringing so many poor sots on lately, I am just surprised you don’t know exactly how things are done between adults who do not simply play foolish games, courtly love or not, poor little country Joan.”

Her hand shot out at his taunting face before she even realized the sharp crack meant she had struck him. Her eyes widened as a red mark slowly suffused his lean cheek.

His mouth had gone chiseled, hard granite; his narrowed eyes were sculptured marble. His voice came low, controlled, when he spoke again. “I save you from my wrath now, little enemy, as I need my strength for the journey to France and great trials to come. But I shall take your challenge when we meet again, and you will see who is lord and conqueror then. Straighten your hair and go back to your silly friends. I tire with this child’s play.”

He stood gracefully, like the swift Plantagenet leopards he so often bore on his pennants and shields. His feet nearly silent, he turned his broad back and disappeared into the depth of green forest.

Isabella and William of Salisbury had stopped calling, although their voices seemed so near she could hear each word. Patting her coiled braids in place, she peered around the big tree trunk, amazed to see they were far across the pond and only their voices carried over. Her legs wobbled as she moved forward. But as Isabella and Salisbury drifted yet farther away, she merely leaned back against the tall tree.

Dusk descended. The voices were no more. She would give them some excuse; that hardly mattered now.